Mythic Kabbalah

An artistic representation of the Tree of Life

No theology stands alone; every academic system that explores the nature of God is accompanied by a mythology. That mythology might be explicitly poetic, or it might be cloaked in imagery we are intimately familiar with and therefore find mundane. Nevertheless, once we begin to explore the nature of God, no matter from which vantage point, inevitably we will stumble into the realm of mythology, and Kabbalism is no different.

The central figure in the mythology of Kabbalah is the Tree of Life, which grows with is roots in heaven and its branches encircling the universe. The notion of a cosmic tree springs up in mythologies from all over the word. The Nordic Yggdrasil has its roots in the realms of Heaven, Earth, and the Underworld, with branches that support the universe. The Yoruban myth of creation tells us that when the world was first created, it spread out from the branches of a palm tree, grown by Olodumare, and that the palm tree had its roots in the heavens. In Chapter 15:1 of the Bhagavad Gita, we are told “The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: It is said that there is an imperishable banyan tree that has its roots upward and its branches down and whose leaves are the Vedic hymns. One who knows this tree is the knower of the Vedas.”

The imagery of the tree is of particular interest. The tree, with its roots that reach deep into the ground and branches that reach out to heaven, is uniquely a symbol of union between heaven and earth. The branches reach ever upward that the leaves might enjoy the heat of the sun, while the roots search down into the dirt drinking of water to nourish the whole while anchoring it firmly to the ground. In Kabbalah, however, the tree grows inverted. There are several interesting inferences we could make about the tree growing thusly. The first and most obvious is that an inverted tree teaches us that the heavens are not to be seen-they are hidden away and unreachable. When we see a tree, most often we do not see the root system that supports it. Not only do we not see the roots, but we often forget that they are there. If you ask someone to draw for you a picture of a tree, most likely they will draw a trunk, branches and leaves, with the roots unseen. The hidden roots of a tree is not unlike the notion of the Judaic Heaven-there is something of God that we see, but there is also something of God that cannot be see, and it is this aspect of God that makes the face of god visible to us in the first place.

The second inference is that just as the root system of a tree nourishes the tree by sucking up water and nutrients from the Earth, the universe is nourished by divine nutrients. God is not just an abstract entity above and beyond and removed from the world-God is what nourishes the world, helping it to grow and expand. If the cosmic tree is like the trees of Earth where the roots stretch out as far as the branches reach, then Heaven is as vast and mutable as is the universe is nourishes. This imagery defines the relationship between the Heavens and the Earth as dynamic, and it also reinforces the mystical saying “As Above, So Below”, especially when considered that the branches of a tree only grow as far s the limits of the root system. The implication is that the totality of the universe has the potential to grow as great as all of Heaven. But it is especially interesting that because the tree is growing upside down, the above/below distinctions are blurred, as is characteristic of any truly holistic system.

Mythic Themes

As both a theological and mythological construct, there are many mythic themes present within the Tree of Life. Some of these we will be able to explore more fully once we begin to talk about the sephiroth individually. However, several of the major themes tend transcend the precise definitions of the sephiroth.

Cosmology

However, before we can talk about the specific holism of the Tree, we should look at the environment in which the Tree grows. In order to understand the environment, we should have a look at Lurianic cosmology.

According to Rabbi Isaac Luria, (called the ARI), in the beginning there was nothing but the Ein Sof, the Divine Without Limit, that great transcendent beginning-of-everything. The Ein Sof was everything, and there was nothing outside of the Ein Sof. But Kabbalistic myth tells us that Ein Sof desired to look upon itself, and so it carved out a space from itself, made within itself a Void. This is known as the Divine contraction, or the tzim-tzum. After a space was carved within itself, Ein Sof then filled that space with its light, the Ein Sof Aur, Light Without Limit. Within that space, the Tree was formed, and the universe as we know it came into being. The divine light emanated outward and down the tree, and perhaps most importantly, the light went back up the tree as well.

Kabbalah holds that the universe was spoken into existence. The Old Testament tells us that God said, “Let there be light”-and light came into being. Kabbalah takes this concept a step further and indicates that God used actual letters of the Hebrew alphabet to create the world. Kabbalists maintain that through willful manipulation of the Hebrew letters, the universe was given form and function and was then filled with the Divine light.

This view of creation gives credence to the idea that “letters are things, and not pictures of things” (1). The letters we write and the words we speak are themselves entities-things. Understanding this, the concept of using words to create has an especially significant meaning within the Wiccan context. One of our commands is “To keep silent”. It is a command not only to keep private things private as it is often interpreted, but it is also a command to treat language as sacred. Thoughts are forms and certainly have power-the moment an idea takes root in our brains the creative process has become, and magic can blossom from that seed. However, when we give voice to the idea, we set it free, and it is no longer quarantined inside our minds. We have freed it to take root elsewhere, to be expanded upon and extrapolated from until new ideas and frameworks can be developed. The spoken and written works, our verbal communication, is extremely powerful, because they are potential for creation and where there is creation there is change. In this sense, each and every individual is a microcosmic creative force—we are shards of the Ein Sof; we are the collectors of the sparks. (2)

But let’s back up a bit. Before the Tree in its perfection could come into being, a first tree was created, but it was flawed. The first tree was unable to contain the great flows of Divine energy, and so as the Ein Sof poured its splendor into it, the vessels shattered. This Tree of shells, called the qlippoth, serves a sort of prototype for the universe. Often times this tree is referred as as the Tree of Evil, but I think that considering the qlippoth as evil in the terms that we understand evil is overstating things a bit. The qlippoth are shells-imperfect vessels that in and of themselves are useless. However, the qlippoth, the broken shells damaged by the splendor of God serve as a sort of skeleton for the universe. Some Kabbalists have asserted that the qlippoth compose the laws of the universe-physics and mathematics. Others have asserted that the qlippoth do not have an actual function in the world other than allowing the world as we know it to exist the way it does. This idea will be further explored later.

Fool’s Journey

Perhaps the most useful theme for the neo-pagan is the notion of the Hero’s-or the Fool’s-journey. The Fool’s journey is particularly familiar to us because it is the primary mythic theme developed within the Tarot. It is perhaps for this reason that later Western hermetic magicians began to associate the Kabbalah with the Tarot so intimately. The themes that they explore definitely have similarities-but then these similarities can also be found within such tales as the Homer’s Odyssey, Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, Arthurian legend and Lucas’s Star Wars Trilogy (I will withhold comment on the prequals) . The Fool’s journey is well plotted through various mythologies of the world, both modern and ancient. What makes Kabbalah unique is not that it illustrates a method of progression from ignorance and crudeness to omniscience and perfection, but rather that this progression is not limited to humanity, but rather is projected onto all of creation and beyond. Because all of creation is anchored in divine soil and nourished by divine light, theoretically all the universe could reach the ultimate perfection that is the Ein Sof.

Of course, we know that won’t ever happen. We are creatures with free will living with a complex system, and as with any complex system, a certain amount of entropy must exist. Things will, inevitably, “go wrong”. Nevertheless, it is not important that in practicality we cannot ever reach perfection. What is important is that within the Kabbalistic system, we are not removed from perfection. We are anchored in it and grow out of it. We are indeed cloaked in the very essence of God. We begin as crude, ignorant beings not unlike infants, and through spiritual awareness and through daily intercourse with the sacred, we begin to become more like that which gave us life. Throughout the travails of life and the lessons learned, we journey through the paths of the Tree and become increasingly knowledgeable and enriched, gaining sensitive insight into the heart and mind of God.

Endnotes

(1) Gill, Eric R. “Typography”
(2) Refers to a Kabbalistic myth “Gathing the Sparks”. More on this in Chapter Four
On to Chapter Three : The Tree of Life

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